It is a generally accepted truth that the internet changed sex work, but I don't think people fully appreciate how extensive that change really was — not just in the form, function, and demographics of sex work, but also the public perception and conversation around sex work.

Like 1) it's an established fact that the internet made sex work safer by providing community, online screening resources, and a way to secure clients from the comfort of one's own home. theverge.com/2018/5/1/17306…

And 1a) it's also pretty well established that the internet changed what kind of people become sex workers. It's a much lower bar to entry to set up a webcam and strip at home than it is to go to a street corner and publicly advertise your willingness to exchange sex for cash.

But that is just half the story, because the internet also changed the consumption of sex work and how we as a community relate to it, mostly through the increasing popularity of porn and subsequent mainstream celebrity of many porn performers.

(And before you try to tell me that porn and escorting are totally different: hold your horses, because I have a response to that.)

In addition to porn becoming more normalized and performers becoming more mainstream in their celebrity, 2) social media gave fans a direct line to sex workers, and gave those sex workers a platform to champion their own issues.

And that direct platform helped humanize sex workers for many people, changing them from 2D caricatures from the punch line of a joke into fully fleshed out human beings. motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…

I cannot understate the transformation I have seen in the public discourse around sex work over the past ten years that I've been in the media. When I was first starting out at Fleshbot, most people in the media saw sex workers as gross and dirty and *other*.

Now we have Conde Nast publications running stories from sex workers about sex work (and not just sensationalized, Happy Hooker-esque ones).

And now let's get to a third point: the internet has changed the economics of porn by gutting the industry through piracy, which means 3) there's increasing amounts of overlap between porn performers and escorts.

And that means that many porn performers — who are always going to be the most public, and to some degree least stigmatized, wing of the sex work community, have direct ties to escorting, which makes them more willing to champion causes like sex work decriminalization.

That's a huge change from previous years when the porn industry, as a legal form of sex work, was aggressively incentivized to distinguish itself from the escort industry.

And it means that people who are just following their fave porn performer on Twitter are now exposed to pro-sex work politics.

I've been adjacent to the adult industry for almost twenty years, and the change has been dramatic.

Sex workers are beginning to get a platform, and a voice, in mainstream politics. That's something that was unthinkable a few years ago.

I don't know that I have a grand conclusion here. But I think it's important to recognize that the internet has allowed one of the most marginalized populations out there to become safer, transform public opinion, and gain a platform. That's pretty huge.

It is possible for anyone, of any gender, to benefit from male privilege at some point in time provided that some aspect of their being gets attributed added value because someone perceived it as being masculine or male.

For example: if a cisgender woman named Robin Smith applies for a job and gets hired based on her resume in part because the person reading her resume she was a man, and their biases ticked up Robin's level of qualification as a result, *she is benefiting from male privilege.*

Likewise a butch cis woman who gets read as male while walking home at night might benefit from the male privilege of not getting harassed while walking down the street.

Will Dems making gains in many state governments, now is a good time to remind you that *state governments can do a lot*. States can take action on climate change, abortion access, healthcare, and many more important issues, and the actions state governments take matters *a lot*.

The reason abortion is near inaccessible in much of the country, even with Roe v Wade still legal, is *GOP state governments*. Push your state to strengthen abortion access in case Roe v Wade gets overturned.

Obamacare was inspired by, ahem, Romneycare, Massachusetts’s statewide healthcare plan. Show America what single-payer can look like by pushing your state to adopt it.

I sorta hate that we use the word “normal” to reassure people about their desires and kinks and sexual behavior because it implies that a behavior’s pathology is determined by its frequency within society

Like, you might be the only person with your one particular kink, making it decidedly *not* normal, but that doesn’t mean you should be ashamed or feel insecure or bad about it.

Your sexuality doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s, it just has to prioritize consent from all parties involved.

Related threads

And so, finally, I get to turn my attention to the shambles that is the #FairPlay4Women guidance.

Hooray!!!

I'll be breaking up the posting times of this, so the whole thing will likely take a couple of hours to come through.

Stay awhile, and listen
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But before we dive into the nitty gritty of what’s wrong with it (everything), let’s step back a bit and look at the big picture here. This is a consultation that is set up to look at the issue of making it easier for trans and intersex people to get a GRC to correct...
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, or adjust, the initial info recorded on their birth certificate when it was first issued. That would be ALL trans and intersex people(and before you chime in with your usual bullshit, do you know what it is that actual intersex organisations say about trans people...
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This is a be patient thread. People really do need to be more patient about things. I understand that frustration is high because we haven’t seen anyone frogmarched to jail. It seems as if nothing has changed. Which is rather ironic, when you think about it.

We made the biggest change of all when we elected Trump. Everyone celebrated when he was elected. Why? Because he was going to clean out the swamp. We were certain of that. Now we’ve lost faith. Why?

Has Trump changed? He’s been wiping out regulations left and right. Jobs are booming. He nominated Gorsuch and is about to nominate another stellar judicial pick for SCOTUS. He’s filling vacancies in the courts all over the country with stellar judges that follow the law.

How can it be an "information service" when phone is increasingly moving to the internet with VoIP and ppl stream radio and television? This is not 1996. The Internet has changed. It is now our main form of communication and needs the Title 2 protection phone & radio got in 1934.

To start with this is a well-funded campaign that we are going to see a lot more of in the coming weeks. I'm told it is run by people in the trade union movement. I'm sure it will get backing from the media.

The reason the campaign is happening is that the government wants to revise the Gender Recognition Act. However, despite what the leaflet implies, no actual proposals have been issued. All we know is that the plan is to make the process of legal recognition easier.